ORIGINAL ARTICLES

The big ideas of the A.M.T.G

Allah(SWT) is beautiful, and he loves that which is beautiful.

Posted 119 weeks ago

“MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHO’S THE FAKEST OF THEM ALL?”

Around the world today, there are various types of beauty. They range from the make-up caked “natural style”, the Instagram selfie #NoFilter technique and the virtually unrecognizable, botox-induced wax-figurine. Just to mention a few.

We have become obsessed with the idea of being “forever young” and we have employed the services of hundreds of creams, detoxes, concealers, knives and even lasers, all in the name of beauty, because obviously no normal person could EVER look beautiful naturally. Oh no, wait, they can! With an endless range of make-up products that take hours to apply but aim to achieve the “I woke up like this” look.

Throughout the centuries, more and more emphasis has been placed on how we should look but not enough on how that “look” is achieved. Augmentation, rhinoplasty, restylane and surgery are all just a bunch of really big words that describe the often painful process of making a naturally beautiful woman look unnaturally fake.

Who are you trying to impress anyway? That cute guy who winked at you? That group of girls that seem “oh so stylish” but have a rotten character? Or your Allah(SWT) who has crafted you with his own hands and made each one of us beautiful in our own way? If you’ve chosen the right answer, then you know that the only thing that we should be improving, is our Akhlaaq (character).

As it has been mentioned in the Quraan Shareef (something to the effect): “Verily we have created man in the best of forms.”

Whatever happened to beauty coming from within? Why is that whenever we see a modestly clothed Muslima who knows she’s beautiful in Allah(SWT)’s eyes, and bugger all to those who disagree, instead of saying what a modest person or how good her character is, we instead say how desperately in need she is of a “makeover” or how “backward” they are simply because they’ve understood that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and you don’t need to outwardly “beautify” yourself to be beautiful in the eyes of Allah(SWT).

As we tirelessly ensure that our cupboards are choked-full of the latest tools and gadgets to make sure that our outward beauty is tip-top, our internal beauty is far from good looking. What’s the point of having a beautiful voice that’s simply hiding an ugly character? Pretty people aren’t always beautiful. To be beautiful, you need a pretty heart, a pretty mind and a beautiful soul, not just a pretty face.

No one type of beauty is ever defined, because perfection is impossible. As long as you’re doing what Allah(SWT) has commanded, then you don’t need to worry about trying to be beautiful, you already are. Ignore the gawks and shun the stares, do what makes your Rabb and your soul happy because darling, a true Muslima is the fairest of them all.

I hope you enjoyed, take lesson and never forget to remember Allah(SWT) in everything you do.

Posted 119 weeks ago

The earth needs to stop- I want to get off!

“There’s just not enough hours in the day” is a phrase we all know too well. No matter how hard we try, time just won’t stop! It seems we spend so much time trying to save time, that no time is being saved at all!

I think it’s time we stopped and asked ourselves, “Where is all the time gone?” Or “Did we have any to begin with? What’s changed?” It’s not the clock or the calender. There’s still 365 days in a year and 24 hours in a day. It’s not the earth, that’s still spinning around the sun as the moon spins around it. The planets are all in the exact same place they’ve been for the last few billion years. The only thing that’s changed, is man.

We spend our years inventing devices for more efficient time-wasting. We spend our months doing jobs we hate. We spend our weeks learning knowledge we don’t understand. We spend our hours wishing life would end. We spend our minutes dreading the moment it will. We spend our seconds wondering how we got to this point.

As man invents more tools and gadgets to make his life more simple, the more complicated he makes it. Now his children have to spend their entire lives studying and trying to make sense of all the ideas he’s come up with so that one day they too can formulate even more ideas so their children and children’s children can suffer as well.

Our lives have been consumed by the never ending vortex that ensures we never run out of things to keep us busy. We spend 10 hours a day gaining “knowledge”, 3 more trying to make sense of that knowledge, 5 on the “gift to mankind” technology, 1 with our “loved” ones, and if we’re lucky, 5 to relax in the hope that we can get up in the morning and repeat the cycle all over again.

As any normal, sane human would, I demand a change. A change so drastic it shakes the world. My dearest sisters in Islam, let’s be that change! Let’s make a decision to change, for the better, let’s close our laptops and switch off our phones and actually take look around us at the world today. It’s a mess. Let’s join together as one and clean it up.

I hope you enjoyed, take lesson and never forget to remember Allah(SWT) in everything you do.

Posted 121 weeks ago

Most of the best roads are bumpy…

Posted 126 weeks ago

Life is a highway

As I sit in the peak hour traffic of a hectic Sunday afternoon, I look out the window at the hustle and bustle of the hundreds of cars all fighting for space on the crowded two-lane road and I think to myself, how similar our lives are to the highway. We’re either rushing to our destination at 90km/h or we’re stuck in traffic, constantly moving, always busy but never really getting anywhere.

Life is a lot like that, there’s gonna be faster cars than you, slimmer cars than you, better cars than you. You’re gonna get stuck in the middle of the road with a puncture or an empty fuel tank. You’re gonna take a wrong turn along the way and end up somewhere, lost and confused, there’s gonna be ups and downs,twists and turns and plenty of U-turns.

The same way we get stopped sometimes at a red robot or by an officer with fines we really can’t afford to pay, in life, we’re sometimes kept back from certain “important” things that maybe, just maybe, weren’t so important. And yes, no one needs mountain high lights and water bills or taxes overdue, but no one said life was gonna be perfect.

Everyone wants to be the best, I mean who doesn’t want to outshine that sleek, silver Rolce Royce and it’s troupe of Mercedes Benz? While some of us cruise in BMWs, the rest trudge behind in beaten up Jelopys.

Life’s great highway though, is also an excellent place for second chances, a wonderful opportunity to show your worth and the perfect place to make memories. The day you drive your first car for the first time after you finally pass your driver’s test, the first time you bring your newborn baby home or the journey in that old, pile of junk-falling apart- but got the job done Station wagon that was more rust and splutter than car and had to be pushed half the way and filled with petrol at every stop and the drive to the house you finally got the cash to buy after all those years of scrounging and saving up.

Life is like a highway. Once in a while we’re gonna go the wrong way, but sometimes, that’s okay. Sometimes it’s those wrong turns that are the best kind. Anyone ca drive a straight road, but to drive a dirt-trek with the sharpest turn and scratches, numerous potholes and punctures and possibly running out of gas and being left stranded on the side of the road but still getting back up takes real determination. That’s what defines us, not how many smart cars we can show up, but being brave enough to withstand all the challenges we’re faced with and after it’s all over, we keep on driving.

I hope you enjoyed, take lesson and never forget to remember Allah(SWT) in everything you do.

Posted 126 weeks ago

Give back to Allah(SWT) before you’re Given back to Allah(SWT)

Posted 130 weeks ago

This world WAS NOT meant to be perfect

Posted 131 weeks ago

IN A WORLD LIKE THIS...

I sit onthe porch and look out at the serene beauty of another colourful sunset. Imarvel at the oranges, the yellows and the pinks that all combine together tomake this amazing sight, Subhanallah! How beautifully Allah(SWT) has
crafted this marvellous display that we
so often take for granted. I pull my knees up to my chest and think to myself,
what if the whole world was this perfect? What if everything was this
beautiful?

What if we
lived in a world where everything was in perfect idyllic harmony? What if,
people were kinder to one another and we found the solution to world peace?
What if, there was no discrimination based on what you look like, where you
come from or who you are? What if each and every being lived in complete
subservience and obedience to Allah (SWT)? What a world that would be.

There would
be no pain, no war, no violence or disobedience of any kind. As opposed to the
world we live in, you’d never hear of a thing like drug intake by a child as
young as 5, you’d never hear of a despicable thing like suicide, being
committed by kids as young as 13, there’d be no illicit relationships, no inhumane
murders, no abandonment of kids who aren’t even old enough to feed themselves.

In a world
like that, there’d be friends who are sincere, family that’s loyal, people who
actually want to help you rather than hurt you, what a wonderful world that
would be.

I jolt out
of my daydream as the Muatthin calls out the Maghrib Azaan. “AllahuAkbar,
AllahuAkbar,” Allah truly is the greatest. I smile to myself, the perfect
world? Never, not in this lifetime, if this world was meant to be perfect, what
would we have to look forward to in Jannah? I go back inside, lay my Musalla
down and make a sincere dua asking Allah(SWT) to make the test of this world
easy for me so I can have my perfect world in Jannatul Firdaus, Aameen.

I hope you enjoyed this post, forgive my shortcomings and never forget to remember Allah(SWT) in everything you do

Posted 131 weeks ago

DARE to HOPE

Posted 131 weeks ago

THE BIGGEST IDEA

What’s the biggest idea? What’s the answer to global warming? Can cancer be cured? Is this how life is meant to be? What’s the biggest of all ideas?

It’s not the spaceship, it’s not Google, it’s not why the chicken crossed the road, no. The biggest and the greatest of all of humankind’s ideas is to HOPE. Hope that there might be an answer to global warming, hope that one day cancer might be cured, hope that even if life isn’t perfect now, there will always be light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark or long it is, maybe not in this world but definitely and without a doubt in the eternal abode of Jannah.

It is the biggest of all ideas because without it, humankind will not know how to BELIEVE in a better and brighter hereafter, they will not know how LIVE anticipating what tomorrow might bring, they won’t know how to IMAGINE that a future better than this exists.

I ‘hope’ you enjoyed this post, forgive my shortcomings and never forget to remember Allah(SWT) in everything you do.